Stock Market

He'd probably like to take this comment back, but then again there are probably many things CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has said that he'd like to take back. In a response to an e-mail posted on his Web site on March 11, Cramer said Bear Stearns (NYSE:BSC) wasn't in trouble and advised the writer to keep his money in the investment bank: "Dear Jim: Should I be worried about Bear Stearns…

For more than a week, NewsBusters has been pointing out that media seem to be adopting the 1992 Bill Clinton playbook of presenting the economy as being in much worse shape than it really is.On Sunday, former Clinton administration adviser George Stephanopoulos took this doom and gloom posture by repeatedly depicting the nation as already being in a recession. In fact, he began the most recent…

Jim Cramer is known for wearing his heart on his sleeve. But the host of CNBC's "Mad Money" normally lets his emotions show over matters financial. In August, for example, he went ballistic at Ben Bernanke, pleading with the Fed chairman to lower interest rates in the face of widespread home foreclosures.This morning, however, Cramer got verklempt not over the discount rate but at the falling…

Granted, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is a trade organization which will, as trade organizations do, try to put the best face on a bad situation. And granted, part of the press's job is to filter through hype and false sunniness to report the truth of what's really going on. But that is most emphatically not what the Associated Press did with yesterday's NAR report on the state of…

You reap what you sow. Nothing could be truer when it comes to the American economy. According to CNBC "Closing Bell" host Maria Bartiromo, if the media continue to push doom-and-gloom economy stories, they will make the economy worse. "[T]he truth is, ["Today" co-anchor] Meredith [Vieira], it doesn't matter if we're in a recession," Bartiromo said on NBC's February 6 "Today." "We can talk…

Two weeks and two rate cuts later, CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has a revived faith in the U.S. stock market. On January 18, Cramer appeared on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and warned if the government didn't intervene and prevent the failure of two large insurance companies, Ambac and MBIA, the Dow Jones Industrial Average would drop 2,000 points in the upcoming weeks. Cramer…

Can you remember where you were at any point during the four years of the Jimmy Carter presidency? Most people who were alive don't look favorably toward the economic situation during those years. But MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, who was gainfully employed as a member of the Carter administration, might look back a little fondly. When he criticized President George W. Bush about the…

It was supposed to be a bad day in the American stock markets according to CBS's "The Early Show." Guess what - they were wrong. "Hong Kong's Hang Seng market was down more than 4 percent," Julie Chen said on the January 28 "The Early Show." "Tokyo's Nikkei index off about 4 percent. Wall Street may have a rough morning in advance of President Bush's final State of the Union address tonight.…

I have referred to Mr. Wesbury's work frequently. That's because he has been, as he is today, a sober voice standing up to Old Media-driven economic hysteria with those stubborn things known as facts. Wesbury first caught my attention when he expressed alarm in late 2005 that 43% of the country thought we were in a recession -- not about to go into one, actually in one. That same poll metric…

You wouldn't expect the New York Times (Times links usually require free registration) to refer to work by yours truly without getting it wrong, would you? Why, of course not. The portion of today's "Taking the Bears to Task" brief by Times reporter Dan Mitchell that refers to my Wednesday Pajamas Media column ("Is the Downbeat Business Press Right about the Economy?"; also here at BizzyBlog)…

You've probably heard about the French trader who has managed to stash away $7 billion before going on the lam. What's the big deal with sticking it to some French bank for $7 billion? This $7-billion loss by the French bank Societe Generale (SocGen) (EPA:GLE) might have caused the sharp plunge in some European stock markets on January 21 - which spurred the Federal Reserve to make an…

The tone of this week's reporting on the US stock markets would lead you to believe that even though Wednesday and Thursday were pretty good days, the markets are down for the week. That's completely wrong. The Dow is up 279 points (2.3%): How about the broader S&P 500? It's up almost 27 points (or 2.0%):